AVS 55 Special Sessions & Lectures

Jackie
Ying (1987- B.E. summa cum laude in
Chemical Engineering, The Cooper Union; 1991 -
PhD Chemical Engineering, Princeton University)
is the Executive Director of the Institute of
Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN),
Singapore. Before taking the reigns at IBN,
Professor Ying studied with Prof. Herbert
Gleiter at the Institute for New Materials,
Saarbrücken, Germany as NSF-NATO Post-doctoral
Fellow and Alexander von Humboldt Research
Fellow. She joined the Chemical Engineering
faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in 1992, where she was promoted to
Associate Professor in 1996 and Professor in
2001. She continues to hold the title of Adjunct
Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT.

Prof.
Ying has been recognized with a number of
research awards including: the ACerS Ross C.
Purdy Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, NSF
Young Investigator Award, Technology Review
TR100 Young Innovator Award, and AIChE Allan P.
Colburn Award. She was elected to the German
National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina in
2005, and is currently the youngest member of
the Academy. AIChE named her as one of the “One
Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era”. Prof.
Ying’s laboratory has been responsible for the
development of several novel wetchemical and
physical vapor synthesis approaches that create
nanocomposites, nanoporous materials and
nanodevices with unique size-dependent
characteristics. Prof. Ying has authored over
200 articles, and presented over 230 invited
lectures at international conferences. Prof.
Ying has over 100 patents issued or pending, and
has served on the Advisory Boards of 5 start-up
companies and 1 venture capital fund. Prof. Ying
is the Editor-in-Chief of Nano Today, is
Advisory Editor of Materials Today and
serves on the Editorial Board for numerous
international journals.

This
talk describes the synthesis and properties of
two classes of nano-structured materials:
nanoparticulate materials and nanoporous
materials for catalytic and biomaterials
applications. Nanoparticulate materials are made
up of crystallites or particles of ~10 nm.
Through controlled synthesis in reverse
microemulsions, my laboratory has achieved
complex oxide nanoparticles with ultrahigh
thermal stability to effectively catalyze
methane combustion. This approach has also
enabled us to derive polymeric nanoparticles for
the glucose-sensitive delivery of insulin.
Through chemical precipitation and additive
dispersion, we have created nanocomposite
systems which are highly selective and sensitive
semiconductor sensors, bioactive ceramic
orthopedic implants, and efficient gene delivery
vectors.

My
laboratory synthesizes novel nanoporous
materials with tailored oxidation states,
coordination chemistry, and electronic
structure. We have found that sol-gel processing
can be combined with supramolecular templating
agents to derive well-defined mesoporous and
microporous transition metal oxides (termed
TMS). The compositional flexibility and pore
size tailoring of the TMS molecular sieves open
new possibilities for catalytic applications
beyond the silicate-based zeolitic materials or
mesoporous MCM-41. We have also attained
mesocellular foams by using triblock copolymers
and swelling agents in templating silicate
precursors. These ultralarge-pore materials have
been used to fixate organometallic ligands for
effective epoxidation, hydroxylation, Heck
catalysis and asymmetric hydrogenation. The
resulting heterogeneous catalysts provide
excellent activity, enantioselectivity, and
reusability.

AVS is a nonprofit organization that promotes communication, education, networking, recommended practices, research, and the dissemination of knowledge on an international scale, in the application of vacuum and other controlled environments to understand and develop interfaces, new materials, processes, and devices through the interaction of science and technology.